
One of my favorite films of the past couple years is surely The Diving Bell and the Butterfly , the film version of French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby 's memoir. Bauby, then Editor-In-Chief of French Elle , suffered a massive stroke and awoke to find himself afflicted with a rare form of paralysis called locked-in-syndrome . Mentally aware, but physically unable to move any muscles except for the eyes, Bauby crafted his memoir over 20 months by communicating, one letter at a time, with blinks from his left eyelid. The film is harrowing, [...]